Case Study: High-Volume Article Label Generation for a Logistics Provider
Overview
A mid-sized logistics company handling thousands of shipments daily needed a reliable, fast, and maintainable way to generate article labels directly from their existing ERP system — without overhauling their infrastructure or retraining staff on new tooling.
Together with kiwi software, they deployed VeloxFactory as the rendering backbone of a lean, purpose-built labeling workflow that now produces over 4,000 labels per day, fully automated and delivered straight to shop-floor printers.
The Challenge
The company's warehouse staff had long relied on a slow, error-prone manual process: looking up article data in the ERP, copying it into a label template, and printing. As throughput grew, this became a bottleneck. They needed:
- Speed — labels generated in under a second per scan
- Accuracy — data pulled directly from the ERP, no manual input
- Simplicity — the interface had to work with a standard barcode scanner, no keyboard required
- Zero infrastructure overhead — no additional middleware, no fat clients, no complex integrations
The Solution
kiwi software developed a lightweight web interface — a single-page scanning mask — that integrates directly with VeloxFactory's API. The workflow is straightforward:
- A warehouse employee scans an article barcode with a handheld scanner
- The web mask sends a single API request to VeloxFactory, passing only the article number
- VeloxFactory queries the ERP database via a configured data adapter, fetching all relevant article attributes in real time
- The Jaspersoft report template is rendered with the live data and output as a print-ready PDF
- VeloxFactory dispatches the rendered label to the company's on-premises print server, which routes it to the nearest floor printer
The employee never touches a keyboard. Scan in, label out — typically within 800 ms end-to-end.
Technical Setup
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| Frontend | Custom web scanning mask (developed by kiwi software) |
| Report engine | VeloxFactory |
| Report template | Jaspersoft Studio (.jrxml), designed to DIN label specs |
| Data source | ERP database via VeloxFactory data adapter (JDBC) |
| API surface | VeloxFactory REST API — article number as sole input parameter |
| Print delivery | VeloxFactory Print Task → company print server → local printers |
| Daily volume | ~4,000+ labels |
The data adapter resolves the article number into a full set of attributes — description, unit, weight class, hazard indicators, and storage zone — which the report template then lays out according to the company's label specification.
Results
Since going live, the labeling process has been running without manual intervention. Key outcomes:
- ~4,000 labels generated and printed per day, fully automated
- Label generation time reduced from several minutes (manual) to under 1 second
- Error rate from manual data entry dropped to zero
- Staff onboarding reduced to a single demonstration — the interface requires no training
- The print server integration eliminated the need for local print drivers or client-side software on scanning stations
Why VeloxFactory
The deciding factor was VeloxFactory's combination of a clean REST API, native data adapter support, and built-in print server integration. kiwi software was able to build the entire scanning frontend in a matter of days, because VeloxFactory handled everything from data resolution to print delivery. There was no need for a separate middleware layer, a custom rendering pipeline, or manual print queue management.
"The scanning mask took days to build. VeloxFactory did the heavy lifting."
— kiwi software, project lead